by Wolfe Locke
“That’s really bad, Sadie. If he dies, Rosebud goes free to rampage; we do not need that particular complication right now," explained Seraph.
“No, Cousin. If Jack dies, I'll be free to choose a new master, and I would choose you,” came the reply from Nether Demon.
This was something Seraph would need to think on more, though the idea tempted him. He didn’t have the opportunity to think yet as they were finally to the end of the plaza and almost to the Inn.
“Open the door!” yelled Sadie with authority as they neared the Inn. “It’s me, Sadie; I've brought the two players with me, Seraph and Jack.”
They didn’t look to see if anyone heard them inside the Inn. The two of them just kept running, and as they approached, the door of the Inn slowly creaked open, and an elven man looked out to verify that the owner of the voice that had shouted who indeed who she claimed to be. He was also likely confirming that the people who were coming their way had a realistic chance of surviving the mad run to make it to the doorway. Satisfied, the elf man quickly slammed the door shut.
“Hurry!” the elven man yelled from behind the door. “Yell again when you get closer—at least to the bottom of the stairs. I’ll only be opening this door for a second; you've got a horde on you. I can’t risk everyone inside to give you a longer window to get in. I can’t risk the door being rushed.”
They pushed on, but Seraph could see the light from Sadie’s sword was beginning to fade—a sign that she was undergoing mana depletion from using the powerful spell. As for him, he had been mostly useless as he carried Jack on his back.
A small group of Stalkers had managed to get in front of them and blocked the stairs heading up into the Inn. With the last of her strength, Sadie let loose a side attack that threw out a white slash that obliterated the monsters as it struck. In doing so, the last of her power was gone, and the spell of turning came undone. All the monsters around them began to collapse on their location as Seraph bounded up the stairs, Jack on his shoulders as an exhausted Sadie followed behind.
Before he even reached the door, Seraph was yelling at them to open up, but when the door didn’t open by the time he reached it, Seraph began pounding on the wood. “We’re out here. Open up!” The door opened up immediately, and Seraph threw Jack off his shoulder, towards the grim-faced elf man and the people behind him. Someone grabbed onto Jack’s comatose form and dragged him away.
Seraph turned around to check on Sadie when he didn’t hear her steps behind him and saw a single shadow hand had appeared and grabbed her ankle. The elven woman already exhausted, fell to her knees, a look of doom on her face when she realized she was about to die.
She wasn’t going to make it. How unfortunate, thought Seraph as he went to move towards the door and was stopped by a voice he couldn’t quite place and couldn’t quite recognize, though it was familiar. “Save her.” As if under compulsion, Seraph turned and did the only thing he could think of. He summoned his “Thousand Hands” and used the ethereal arms to pull Sadie from the grasp of the undead’s hand, pulling her up and pushing her to safety, even as the move unbalanced him and sent him careening into the undead mob.
As he fell, Seraph saw the waiting men at the door grab her and bring her in. Closing the door behind them, the lock triggered loudly, engaging the safe designation. The sound let Seraph know he was trapped outside, surrounded by enemies.
A lone path to safety seemed to reveal itself in an opening in the undead mob near the yellow gate—a single chance of survival. Time stood still for him as he used his Thousand Handed ability to push monsters out of the way. He summoned a Starfall into the palm of his hands as a bluff, and though it didn’t have the same effect as Sadie’s magic, the dead briefly recoiled from the white light before realizing it did not harm them. That brief moment was all he needed to make a mad dash toward the great dungeon gate.
Safety for him was on the other side of the door marked with yellow lights, and as he pushed his way through the throng of undead, Seraph silently worried about what he would find on the other side.
Chapter 8: Pier Park
* * *
He used all of his strength to sweep aside the undead that had tried to swarm him, avoiding suffering the same fate as Jack by falling victim to the Ghost Touch by using his spectral arms as a barrier as he barreled forward, recklessly pumping his legs, forcing his way through. Survival required nothing less than for him to expend all of his energy and power here, now, at this moment.
By running directly forward through the gap in the undead mob, following along on the path leading directly to the yellow glowing dungeon gate, Seraph was able to reach the gateway. As soon as he touched the handle of the oversized brown door built into the arched wall, Seraph dismissed his spectral hands, needing to conserve whatever mana he had left. With the horde at his back, Seraph turned the handle and grunted in exertion as he pushed open the door and gazed inside.
In the past, Seraph had been able to see the other side and where he would be arriving. But through this gateway, all he saw was darkness. A thin film of black absorbed all light, spreading across the entire doorway. What lay on the other side, Seraph could only guess.
His hands brushed the film, and it contorted against his skin, resisting. For a brief moment, Seraph hesitated, unsure of what he would find on the other side. “I can’t control what’s on the other side of this doorway, but if I stay here, I will die; I’ve no tricks or cards left to play.” Rational thought broke through his feelings of indecision as Seraph hardened his resolve and pressed his hands harder into the film, pushing through it as the seal ruptured, and he passed through, leaving the horde of undead behind him, clustering around the gate.
Passing through the barrier, Seraph found himself in an endless darkness. Twisting his body around, he saw the open doorway of the gate behind him, the undead already dissipating with him gone. In this place, he felt tension throughout his entire body as the pressure around him threatened to crush him with raw force. He had no options left but to push forward, as even his Darkvision could not help him navigate in the perfect dark. The sensation of pressure quickly passed, but his vision did not improve. Aches and pains through his body only now just started to be noticed as he began to heal from the various wounds across his body. Wounds that he hadn’t noticed before during his rush to get to the gate when his body had been freely pumping him full of adrenaline.
Even though Seraph had managed to escape mostly unscathed, and he would quickly heal from whatever wounds he received, Seraph was still exhausted. Once again, he was alone in the dungeon. Even though heading through the gate was the right decision, and really the only option at Seraph’s disposal, the fatigue that was starting to set into his body from all his recent exertions worried him. There was no telling what he would find on the other side of the gate, and he was already in a weakened state. Even the olive-green jumpsuit that he had been wearing was ripped in multiple places and would no longer afford him the protection it had previously.
Grunting with effort rooted in exhaustion, Seraph trudged forward, the other side drawing him to it in much the same way that magnetism draws metal. Seraph continued to walk until his hands touched a liquid-like texture similar to the film he had felt before on the entry side of the gate.
This is it, Seraph thought. I’ve reached the end. Bracing himself, he stepped through, extending his Cat’s Claw and landing on his feet at the ready, prepared to fight again.
Brilliant light temporarily blinded him, rendering him unable to see—a weakness of his dark vision, and something typical when passing from any extreme dark into the light. Raising his off-hand, Seraph tried to shield his eyes from the light of the sun. He had arrived on the second floor of the World Dungeon. As quickly as he had seen the light, it was gone. The only light that he knew was of the perpetual grey gloom of this place.
Behind him, Seraph heard a door shut. The first thing he noticed was the feeling of ocean mist on his face. Although the sensation
wasn’t quite an accurate description, something was slightly off, and the air was filled with the faint smell of decay found in places that stay damp, permanent mold and mildew among the saltwater.
Notification: You have entered “The Hungry City” Dungeon Floor 2, the realm of the Demon Prince, Beelzebub.
Details: The Hungry City was once full of people cursed for their gluttonous behavior. For their sin, they must serve their dark lord for all of eternity, pursuant of the hunger that in life they could never satisfy.
Clear Conditions: Defeat or Banish the Demon Prince, Beelzebub
A look of surprise could be seen on Seraph’s face as he looked at the prompt. In his other life, no demon prince had been below the 7th floor of the Dungeon. The implications were dire; this was going to be much more complicated than Seraph had ever considered. He stared at the notification for a few seconds—hoping to see the information change or provide some hint regarding a weakness of the demon and his realm—before finally dismissing it. To defeat a demon prince was no easy task. It was one that he had not attempted until he had been in the dungeon for years, not days, and it required a balanced team; it was not something he could do alone.
Though Seraph had already guessed and seen first-hand that things had changed, he thought he had been mentally prepared for it all. It was another thing entirely to see that even the floors of the dungeon had changed. Seraph had hoped foreknowledge of the previous dungeon—the Phoenix’s Refuge—would have given him an edge in both its completion and in the hidden artifacts hidden throughout. But it was not to be if Phoenix’s Refuge still existed; he no longer had access.
The Hungry City, Seraph thought, contemplating as he looked around. He had arrived in front of a small wooden doorway. Green paint with white trim peeled severely, revealing heavily weathered grey wood beneath that had become swollen from moisture. It stank of old wood rot. The door sat on the end of a long pier out in the ocean. The shore was a distant visage that Seraph estimated to be somewhere between a half a mile and a mile away. Out of habit, he looked around for his companions before being reminded that he had left them behind when he had saved Sadie and Jack.
Seraph looked down at his hands and clenched his fists as if in doubt that he was in charge of his own body. “Why would I save her?” he wondered. “Why would I put myself at risk?” But no answers came to him. Try as he might, he could not justify what had happened.
The dead littered the ground everywhere, frozen in death where they had fallen. Outfits clung to half-rotted skeletons, moldy and torn. Seraph walked towards the nearest skeleton and examined it. The bones were blacked with age and desiccated by the sun. Reaching out, Seraph tried to search the pockets of the shredded polo the skeleton was wearing, only for the body to collapse in on itself.
With a quick look around, Seraph saw scores of the dead all in the same condition. Some of the bones had an odd blotchy appearance, while others had significant cuts. Some of the bodies still had gnarled pieces of skin stuck to blackened bones. The sight gave Seraph the chills; whatever had killed these people had killed them all at once.
Interrupting his thoughts, a spray of foul-smelling oily black water washed up on to the pier, and something about the way it looked set him on edge. In his gut, Seraph knew that the corrupted water should never touch him, and being surrounded on all sides by the water was a risk he couldn’t ignore. He considered waiting in place in hopes that the monsters of Hometown would clear out due to loss of interest or daybreak. But when Seraph looked back at the doorway, he saw that it was wrapped in rusted chains and locked. The message was simple: he would not be allowed to go backward. The dungeon wouldn’t let him.
That left only one option for Seraph. If he couldn’t stay in place due to the danger the water posed to him, and if turning back wouldn’t be an option allowed to him, he would need to move on and get to shore. With a goal firmly set in his mind, he strode forward.
The pier was heavily stained by the water, and Seraph kept having to step over pieces of rotting kelp and rotting bodies while avoiding the other debris that had washed up and clung to the sides of the tattered railing. Everywhere that Seraph looked, he saw waterlogged boxes, broken wooden crates, and the detritus of mankind.
Warily, Seraph walked by and glanced into the first few crates that were opened and overturned. Inside he saw what appeared to be human remains and bones clumped together. Unlike the other bodies he had seen, these seemed to emanate dark energy. Seraph chose to ignore it, though he kept a wary eye on them, fully expecting that, at any moment, they would reanimate.
Seraph avoided getting too close to the edge of the pier and couldn’t get a good view of the water, but something about it kept bothering him, and he needed to get a better look. He walked over to the side of the pier, making sure that he was free of any spray or oncoming waves before looking down. As he looked over the railing, Seraph thought, This isn’t just any ocean. He recoiled from the ledge as he recognized what was beneath him.
The entire ocean was corrupted with abyssal energies—something beyond nature's laws. The surface below was dark as night and churning in a way that waves did not move. Beneath the surface of that dark liquid, Seraph thought he saw nightmarish horrors stirring, though he was unable to make out what they were.
“Careful,” he cautioned himself, thinking back to the spray that he had barely avoided. Abyssal water burned and consumed anything living that came into contact with, but worse still were the abominations that often lived hidden within it. In his almost thirty years within the dungeon, he rarely had to deal with the phenomenon, and when he did, it had been within a small pond deep within one of the last floors of the dungeon, not an entire ocean on the first delving floor.
At least, I know now what killed all these people, Seraph thought as he looked towards the far-off shoreline. Scanning his surroundings to avoid disturbing the dead as he walked, he weaved his way past puddles of the abyssal water that had pooled on the pier.
From behind him, Seraph could hear the movement of the bones within the crates he had passed as they began to shake and resemble. The bones were covered in a dark green hue as they began to fuse together in animation. Seraph shook his head in irritation; he wasn’t surprised by the turn of events, but he had hoped to avoid the obvious encounter. Releasing the Cat’s Claw from his wrist sheath, Seraph prepared himself for the fight that was to come. At least, these undead would be weaker than the wraiths that haunted Hometown at night, giving him a chance to progress and gain some experience at the same time.
Having just a few moments before they reached him, Seraph quickly scanned his stat sheet and saw that he had finally hit level ten. In a sense, Seraph was now twice as powerful as a regular human. Having reached the level threshold, he would now gain two stat points instead of one for every level. But that also came at the cost of needing more experience to level-up.
The first ten levels were basically near free with the low experience bar. But, upon reaching level ten, the experience required to advance was raised to a flat 1000 per level. The number wouldn’t change again until his level was much higher than it currently was—at level 100—but even then, 1000 experience was difficult to come by when most monsters in the dungeon gave little experience in the single and low double digits.
These skeletons wouldn't give much experience either, but he had years to grind to build his power; nothing in the World Dungeon was going to be quick or easy—it was why so many people died so quickly once they entered the dungeon for the first time. The difficulty of gaining experience had been one of the chief driving reasons for the escalation of player killing and a partial driver of the conflict with the elves. Killing each other was safer.
Seraph went ahead and put the two points into strength and dismissed his status screen. He hoped the increase in his raw power would be enough for him to sever and cut straight through the reanimated undead. His Ca’’s Claw was not an ideal weapon for fighting skeletons, making him wish he had not disca
rded the mace he had been given during the tutorial when he had claimed his claws.
He shrugged it off as the last of the skeletons pulled themselves together, relieved that none of the other hundreds of bodies on the pier had reanimated. Nine skeletons began to amble over to him, stumbling as they tripped over the rubbish, rusted swords and axes dragging on the ground, held awkwardly in undeath by skeletal hands. This will all be over soon, Seraph thought.
Chapter 9: Cold Hands
* * *
The few points Seraph had added into strength, caused a noticeable change in his physique and added some muscle to his overall lean frame. This triggered discomfort and pain as the changes forced his body to stretch ligaments and grow new bone and sinew. Seraph’s body grew inches taller in a matter of seconds.
It had only been a few days since his rebirth, but the progress Seraph had made in that time was amazing to him. He never would have thought a cripple could accomplish what he had already managed—especially in the absence of a legendary or elite class unlocked since the beginning.
As Seraph flexed his arms to warm his muscles, he knew the changes would be enough. Twelve skeletons, he now counted, not the nine he initially thought. The last three of the undead were not as close as the others. If he acted quickly, they would not be able to swarm him as they were slow and cumbersome. Seraph had long been a lone fighter, never depending in battle on allies or friends. When he was alone, he was in his element.
The first of the skeletons broke away from the others in a kind of half-jog, alone as the others followed behind in its wake. The skeleton was awkward and off-balance as the giant sword it held dragged behind it, too heavy for the monster to lift, the noise harsh and grating, a distraction that Seraph needed to ignore.